Fic: Family Fortunes Part 2/7 (Chibs/Juice- established) R/NC-17
Title: Family Fortunes 2/7
Author: Edie Sunshine
Rating: R- NC-17 (for dark themes)
Warnings: Mentions of child abuse, past violence against children. Some SOA S5 spoilers, but nothing jaw-dropping
Hello! Gosh, it's been quiet here the last few months! I assume we're all squirrelling away at S5 fics? Yes? Please? Pretty please with sugar and a cherry?
This fic picks up from the last one I posted here so fits in with the sort-of series I've been playing around with. Bit darker than usual, so I'm actually going to give a warning here and say that if you think you might be offended or upset by themes like child abuse, violence against kids etc, you might wanna skip it. I hope I've portrayed it sensitively but I'm not an expert.
It's another long one, I'm afraid, and because LJ is the magnificently twitchy little beast that it is, I'm gonna have to post in sections, just to retain my sanity. I'll try to get it all posted over the next few days so you're not waiting around for the next part, though.
Thanks, as always, to the mighty spacebabe for her SPaG expertise, straight talking and common sense:0)
Part 2
Seven am and Chibs really can't take an all-nighter, sober anymore. He sits on the back step with his cigarettes, watches the bed sheets flapping on the washing line, a mug of syrupy black coffee at his feet. Chibs hates coffee, fucking hates the stuff, but there's no way he's gonna stay awake without it.
Luisa's back yard is little more than a poured concrete patio and an almost-bald lawn. There's a water logged sandpit in one corner and a rusty basketball hoop sagging in another. A one-eyed baby doll lies half submerged in the sandpit. Well, it might be a baby doll, might be just its head.
Someone's car alarm's been going off for the last fifteen minutes or so. It occurs to Chibs that it might be the Pinto. Maybe, once he's finished his coffee, he'll remember to care.
The rain cleared the clouds during the night, so even though it's barely midway through October, it's still cold enough for Chibs to confuse fag smoke with his breath.
In the living room, Juice is pulling the furniture around and messing about with the vacuum cleaner, the eldest kid helping him.
The clatter of flip flops on the step announces Jo Jo's presence, baby on one shoulder, mug of coffee in her other hand.
'Take this so I can smoke?' Jo Jo leans down, deposits the sleeping baby on Chibs' shoulder, a scrap of muslin under the kid's chin, and takes one of Chibs' smokes from the packet on the step next to him. She sits beside him to spark up, breathes out heavily, and Chibs waves the smoke away from the baby's face. He can feel another yawn coming on.
As babies go, this one's not bad. So long as it's held and patted on the back from time to time, it pretty much just grumbles to itself. Not like Jax's two. Right pair of screamers, and Kerrianne was the same. Always wanting something, and whatever you offered was wrong, and she'd just bellow louder.
'That little girl still under the table in there?'
'Yeah. Ain't doing no harm. Carlito's gonna do that corner last...' Jo Jo says nothing more. She finishes her cigarette and heads back inside, leaves Chibs with the baby. Kid just snuffles, burrows its face into Chibs' shirt.
'Just you an' me then...'
&&&
The hospital's a run-down affair, marginally better than Stockton. Jo Jo's got the baby in its car seat and Juice has ended up carrying Antonio. Mika's got Marta by the hand and she fights him every step of the way.
Rosie latched onto Chibbie earlier in the afternoon when they were trying to coax her out from under the table, and she's pretty much decided he belongs to her.
Juice wishes he'd had time to snap a picture of the guy, bringing the laundry inside with a kid in a pink dress clamped, limpet like, to his hip.
The woman from CPS hasn't dragged the kids away yet, but she's coming back for a follow up in a few days so they're not out of the woods yet.
Marnie steps out of the ICU, wiping anti-bac hand gel over the backs of her hands. She's still in her nurse's uniform, a pink hoodie pulled on over the top of it. She frowns as she sees all of the kids.
'You can't take them in there.'
What the fuck, Marn? Juice wants to say. They're not fucking stupid! Course they've brought the kids with them, what else could they do? Doesn't mean they're gonna try taking them all into the ICU...
'It was this or nothing,' Jo Jo says, and because it's Jo saying it, any protest Marnie might have been about to make just falls silent. 'Take 'em a minute.' Jo Jo hands the baby carrier over to Chibs and he just takes the kids without question, gets them all crowded around the soda machine and sorts through his pockets for quarters.
Jesus Christ, even Chibbie's doing bitch work for Jo Jo...
'Did she wake up yet?' Juice keeps a weather eye on Mika, since he's the one most likely to follow what's going on. The kid's not paying attention though, he's too busy opening a can for his sisters, supervising to make sure they understand that they have to share the soda. Juice remembers Marnie doing the same with him and Jo Jo.
'She's in and out.' Marnie works her way out of her hoodie, ties it around her waist instead. 'They're talking about psych evaluations when she's out of ICU... Did Child Services get there yet?'
'Yeah. We got it handled.' Jo Jo stands in her usual fighting stance, hands in pockets.
'They're gonna come back, though.' Juice can't let Marnie think they don't need to worry about that anymore, not when the thing with child services is, they never really go away. One false move and it could all still fall apart. Jo Jo kicks out at Juice's ankle, gets him just above where his boot finishes. Hard. 'What?'
Marnie sighs, hands on hips, like their mom used to do. 'Look, guys, just handle it, okay? I don't want Luisita losing her kids like this. It'll kill her.'
Oh, yeah, Juice thinks, 'cause it's all about Luisa, just for a change. She has five kids, all by different people, then decides to off herself with her kids in the house. Like she's mom of the fucking year...
'Chica, why don't you go say 'hi' to her? Third bed on the left as you go in.' Marnie gestures to the door to the ICU. 'Don't forget the hand gel.' Jo gives the dispenser a wary look, wipes her hands down her pants instead and lets the door swing shut behind her.
Now their sister is out of the way, Marnie turns her attention to Juice. She holds out her arms and folds him up in them. 'You sure it's safe for you to be here, Mijo?'
'Yeah, Marn... I mean, it's been years an'...' Juice shrugs and Marnie holds him at arm's length. 'I'll just keep my head down, and...' Marnie nods, doesn't lose the worried expression, though. She just tugs the hood of his sweater forward from where it's slipped back from his head.
She smells like her deodorant might have given up a few hours ago. There's also the usual, faintly medicinal smell that always lingersin her hair. Her face is pale and there are dark circles under her eyes. She cups Juice's face in her palms and looks at him long and hard. 'How bad's the house?'
Trust Marnie. She knows Juice can't lie for shit. 'It's okay, I can handle it... So long as Jo Jo and Chibs keep the kids out of the way, I can get it all fixed.'
Juice watches Marnie as she turns to watch Chibs. The guy slumps into one of the plastic chairs, carry cot beside him and Antonio on his lap. Rosie tries to crawl onto his other knee and her face crumples in rage when he tells her 'no'. Chibs catches the little girl's hand, says something in her ear, his face, all solemn, and she shuts right up, contents herself with standing beside him, her head on his shoulder. Mika is talking to him like they're two guys chatting in a bar, mano a mano and Marta seems happy enough licking the dregs of her soda from off her fingers, feet swinging as she sits in her chair.
Juice wonders what it is Marnie's seeing, tries to see the guy as she might. Tall, skinny, with hair the colour of gun metal, and heavy pouches under his eyes. Scar on each cheek and brief teasers of tattoos half hidden by his clothing. Neither one of them brought their cuts with them but even without his, Chibs looks badass.
'You trust him?' Marnie's eyes flicker from the little tableau to Juice and her stare is almost as impenetrable as one of Jo Jo's.
'With my life,' Juice says.
&&&
Chibs has never been so glad to see a molded plastic chair in his entire life. He keeps half an eye on his five new best friends and the other half on Juice's sister. She's watching him right back. He sees her send Juice in to see his sister next, and then she walks over to where Chibs is sweating under the pile of kids.
He gives her a quick once over. Almond shaped eyes, framed with long dark lashes. High cheekbones and full lips. Even with minimal sleep, and worry etched in around her eyes, Marnie's stunning. It's a good job Tig isn't with them, 'cause he'd be in trouble.
Her hair is dark like the others', but unlike Jo Jo's it's not silky, looks like it might want to be curly but it's been beaten into chemical submission. He remembers Fi doing the same with hers when they first started seeing each other. All that shite went right out the window the minute Kerrianne came along.
Chibs remembers that Marnie is the one who shares a father with Juicy and that said father is African American, not Puerto Rican like their ma. Chibs knows for a fact that if Juice ever let his hair grow any longer than a grade one, it'd settle into tight curls.
She looks coolly down her nose as she gives Chibs a once-over of her own. Girl knows she's hot, doesn't mind using it to her advantage. Jo Jo doesn't do that, she uses her physicality to intimidate you, and Juicy, well, Juicy could easily use his appearance to his advantage, but the lad's got no idea what he fucking looks like.
Marnie opens her arms and the three kids who can shift under their own steam, immediately throw themselves against her.
&&&
Juice steps through the doors and finds the ward beyond about as quiet as an ICU ever gets, random beeps and the shushing sound of breathing equipment. Luisa's bed is the third from the door, just like Marnie had said it would be. She's tiny and alien looking against the white sheets, eyes shut tight and a tube under her nose. There's a drip in her arm and connected up to a rapid infuser, and her hospital gown sits awkwardly on her prone figure, like it's made of sheet metal and someone tried to mold it around her.
Jo Jo's sitting, flicking through Luisa's medical chart the way normal people look through a newspaper. 'Get a chair from one a the other beds.' She barely looks up.
'Did she wake up at all?' Juice can't help himself, he has to touch Luisa's hand. It's cool and dry, like she's already gone. There's a little blood seeping through the bandages and a smear of the stuff up her arm and across the gown.
'Nah.' Jo Jo goes right on reading and Juice fetches a chair.
He hates hospitals at the best of times, especially intensive care units. Last time he was visiting one must have been for Clay, and he'd spent hour after hour watching the rise and fall of the man's chest, listening to the sound of wet breath rasping in Clay’s battered lungs.
He'd felt the possibility of losing Clay like a mallet to his guts, looked at the man who was the closest thing he was ever gonna have to a father, and tried to imagine the world without him. He'd spent the time sitting with Clay, lost in memories of his early days with the club.
This, though, this is different. Right now, he feels anger more than anything, fury and disgust. And that's stupid, because, more than anyone, Juice should be able to understand what might make Luisa try to kill herself. He tries not to think too much about what happened those few months back, with the brick and Miles and the clusterfuck that was his relationship with Chibbie when he got out of Stockton, but right now, he can look back and know that he was lucky he hadn't succeeded, because he ended up with a second chance.
The thing is, back then Juice thought he had a pretty good reason for wanting to end things. He knows different now. Luisa, though, what the fuck could she have to feel bad about? And what kind of mother tries to off herself with her kids in the house?
'Jo?' His sister goes on flicking through the chart entries like she's not listening but Juice knows better. He gives her foot a little shove with his own and receives a half-hearted kick in return. 'You think she, um, you think she meant to-'
Jo lifts her eyes to meet his, blinks once. 'Seen her arms? I don't think she cut herself shaving.'
'Shut up, that's not what I meant! Sometimes people do stuff like this as a cry for help, or-'
Jo just shakes her head, like everything he says is stupid, goes back to the file. 'Retard,' she murmurs.
'Fuck you. You're not even reading that. It's all written in doctor writing, no one could read that.' Juice slumps back in his chair with his arms folded.
Jo smirks, clears her throat and starts reading out loud from the file, just to prove she can.
&&&
Juice takes the wheel to get him and Chibs back to Luisa's, on the grounds that Chibs got lost getting them there before, and the journey from the hospital's way more complicated. The moment the car starts to move, Chibs' head starts to nod.
Juice doesn't blame the guy for falling asleep, they've both been up since last night. He hopes they sell Red Bull in the store near Luisa's place. He'll never get through the next few days without it.
That night, Marnie declares she's staying over and that Juice and his buddy should go stay in a motel or something. She has them all sit down to dinner together first, though, and even though it's take out, she insists they sit at the table with plates and cutlery and all that 'please pass the salt' shit.
'Mika, ask, don't reach.' She says without even turning her head and the kid freezes, lets go of the rice and tucks his hands in his lap. 'Rosita, I know you're tired but you're not sitting under there. If you want food, come sit up at the table.' The little girl gets up without complaint, parks herself in the seat next to Chibs, dislodging her sister. 'Carlito, would you please say grace?'
Juice hears a stifled snort and looks up to see Jo Jo smirking at him behind her glass. Chibs is looking away, trying to school his own expression. Looks like Marnie's still on that god shit...
&&&
They get into the motel room and Juice pitches himself headfirst onto the bed, feet dangling off the side.
'Hey, idiot. Big sis ain't here now. Gonna have to put yourself to bed.'
'Don't care. Sleeping like this.' Juice really doesn't care. He's tired. He's so tired he's seeing double and has no idea how he drove them both to the motel without crashing their stupid rental.
He hears Chibs chuckle, and then the man is sitting himself on the edge of the bed, unlacing Juice's boots and letting them thud to the floor. The bed shifts again as Chibs lies back beside him and Juice thinks about moving closer, realises he can't be bothered. He lifts one leaden arm and drops it over the guy's belly instead.
'Pretty sure yer sister's figured out you're a friend o' Dorothy,' Chibs says after a while.
'Huh?' Juice raises his head just long enough to hit the guy with his patented Ortiz Death Glare. He lets his face fall back to the mattress when Chibs just smirks and lights up a smoke.
'Marnie,' Chibs says, like Juice is a retard. 'She knows you like dick. You can go back to waving your hand around when you're talking.' Guy holds out one hand, limp-wristed, puts the other one on his hip.
'Shut up. You look like a fucking teapot.' Juice turns his face so he doesn't have to look at the idiot. Chibs lying there like would normally be pretty funny, but Juice is tired, and the guy's full of shit, and Juice really doesn't want to have any sort of conversation right now.
He has no idea what makes Chibs think Marnie knows about the two of them, it's not like they walk around hand in hand and blowing each other kisses. Maybe he's figured it out the same way he figures out all the other stuff that Juice just doesn't get. Like knowing when Tig's on the rag, or Jax needs a hug.
'Suit yourself,' Chibs says, exhales slowly and then when Juice still doesn't turn back, the guy shifts himself over. 'Hey, come here.'
There's a brief press as Chibs kisses the side of Juice's face and then Juice can just relax into the feel of the other man around him. Juice lifts his head just long enough to tell Chibs that with all those fucking scarves the guy wears, he sets off way more gay-dar than Juice does.
'Yeah, dream on,' Chibs says, tightening his arms around him.
&&&
Later that night, Juice is lying on his side with the covers tugged up around his neck when Chibs finally joins him in the bed. Guy curls up around him, presses a kiss to the back of his head, hands sliding up under his t-shirt and settling around his middle.
Juice wants to be able to just snuggle and be snuggled back, for the day to have been left behind along with their shedded clothes. He can't shake off all the shit from earlier though, still wishes they'd sacked the whole thing off and gone to the park instead. Feels like the whole day's just sitting on his chest, smothering him. Chibs has been solid and silent, not getting in his face, demanding answers. Juice knows he owes the guy some sort of an explanation.
'Luisa's always been crazy.' Juice rolls onto his back, lets Chibs cuddle him closer. By the light streaming in from the bulb outside in the walkway, Juice can just make out the guy's silhouette: head, ear, shoulder. He's naked and his body is hot against Juice's, comfortable as a teddy bear. 'This suicide thing, it'll have been something dumb, like, she'll be jealous that her kids are getting more attention from their grandpa and she likes having the attention herself...'
Beside him, Chibs snorts. 'Juicy, what are you getting at?'
But, that's the stupid thing, Luisa and dad were always tight. Guy clashed with Marnie, and he fucking hated the sight of Juice. Jo Jo always seemed to have some sort of brick wall built up between herself and the rest of the world, but Luisa was all about her daddy, and he was all about her. She's never really gotten over growing up, having to be an adult. That's why Juice pays her bills and Marnie goes round there every week, and why Jo Jo hates dealing with her.
Dad forced them all to grow up fast, except for Lulu, his baby. He wanted to keep her a little girl forever. But the guy's a freak and now Luisa's a grown up, the little girls are more interesting, and she's lost out to them.
'Maybe it'd be better if the kids were in the system.' The moment it's out of his mouth, Juice wishes he could take it back. Chibs' hand tightens on Juice's arm and Juice is glad he's said it here and not to one of his sisters.
'Hey.' Chibs shifts, pins him, and his hands pinch on Juice's wrists. 'That's enough of that, yer hear? Those kids need their family round 'em. Don't want the social raising 'em...' Chibs hands loosen on Juice's wrists and he sighs, moves so that he's not crushing Juice anymore. 'Listen to me, Juicy. Yer sister's got troubles. Like it or not, you gotta help her. That's the best way to protect those kiddies.'
'Yeah. Yeah, I know...' And Juice does know. He remembers all too well what it had been like getting kicked out at fifteen and not knowing where he was gonna end up. He'd been lucky, Marnie had taken him. It hadn't been great, her boyfriend at the time had been a jerk, in spite of the motorbike he rode. But Juice has heard stories about kids who end up in care, and when he thinks about his two nieces, three nephews, he knows that's not what he wants for any of them.
Maybe the babies would luck out and end up with a nice family, but the other three would be stuck with revolving door foster carers. Poor Mika has precious little time to be a kid as it is and he'd be lost without his little sisters to look out for.
End part 2
Author: Edie Sunshine
Rating: R- NC-17 (for dark themes)
Warnings: Mentions of child abuse, past violence against children. Some SOA S5 spoilers, but nothing jaw-dropping
Hello! Gosh, it's been quiet here the last few months! I assume we're all squirrelling away at S5 fics? Yes? Please? Pretty please with sugar and a cherry?
This fic picks up from the last one I posted here so fits in with the sort-of series I've been playing around with. Bit darker than usual, so I'm actually going to give a warning here and say that if you think you might be offended or upset by themes like child abuse, violence against kids etc, you might wanna skip it. I hope I've portrayed it sensitively but I'm not an expert.
It's another long one, I'm afraid, and because LJ is the magnificently twitchy little beast that it is, I'm gonna have to post in sections, just to retain my sanity. I'll try to get it all posted over the next few days so you're not waiting around for the next part, though.
Thanks, as always, to the mighty spacebabe for her SPaG expertise, straight talking and common sense:0)
Part 2
Seven am and Chibs really can't take an all-nighter, sober anymore. He sits on the back step with his cigarettes, watches the bed sheets flapping on the washing line, a mug of syrupy black coffee at his feet. Chibs hates coffee, fucking hates the stuff, but there's no way he's gonna stay awake without it.
Luisa's back yard is little more than a poured concrete patio and an almost-bald lawn. There's a water logged sandpit in one corner and a rusty basketball hoop sagging in another. A one-eyed baby doll lies half submerged in the sandpit. Well, it might be a baby doll, might be just its head.
Someone's car alarm's been going off for the last fifteen minutes or so. It occurs to Chibs that it might be the Pinto. Maybe, once he's finished his coffee, he'll remember to care.
The rain cleared the clouds during the night, so even though it's barely midway through October, it's still cold enough for Chibs to confuse fag smoke with his breath.
In the living room, Juice is pulling the furniture around and messing about with the vacuum cleaner, the eldest kid helping him.
The clatter of flip flops on the step announces Jo Jo's presence, baby on one shoulder, mug of coffee in her other hand.
'Take this so I can smoke?' Jo Jo leans down, deposits the sleeping baby on Chibs' shoulder, a scrap of muslin under the kid's chin, and takes one of Chibs' smokes from the packet on the step next to him. She sits beside him to spark up, breathes out heavily, and Chibs waves the smoke away from the baby's face. He can feel another yawn coming on.
As babies go, this one's not bad. So long as it's held and patted on the back from time to time, it pretty much just grumbles to itself. Not like Jax's two. Right pair of screamers, and Kerrianne was the same. Always wanting something, and whatever you offered was wrong, and she'd just bellow louder.
'That little girl still under the table in there?'
'Yeah. Ain't doing no harm. Carlito's gonna do that corner last...' Jo Jo says nothing more. She finishes her cigarette and heads back inside, leaves Chibs with the baby. Kid just snuffles, burrows its face into Chibs' shirt.
'Just you an' me then...'
&&&
The hospital's a run-down affair, marginally better than Stockton. Jo Jo's got the baby in its car seat and Juice has ended up carrying Antonio. Mika's got Marta by the hand and she fights him every step of the way.
Rosie latched onto Chibbie earlier in the afternoon when they were trying to coax her out from under the table, and she's pretty much decided he belongs to her.
Juice wishes he'd had time to snap a picture of the guy, bringing the laundry inside with a kid in a pink dress clamped, limpet like, to his hip.
The woman from CPS hasn't dragged the kids away yet, but she's coming back for a follow up in a few days so they're not out of the woods yet.
Marnie steps out of the ICU, wiping anti-bac hand gel over the backs of her hands. She's still in her nurse's uniform, a pink hoodie pulled on over the top of it. She frowns as she sees all of the kids.
'You can't take them in there.'
What the fuck, Marn? Juice wants to say. They're not fucking stupid! Course they've brought the kids with them, what else could they do? Doesn't mean they're gonna try taking them all into the ICU...
'It was this or nothing,' Jo Jo says, and because it's Jo saying it, any protest Marnie might have been about to make just falls silent. 'Take 'em a minute.' Jo Jo hands the baby carrier over to Chibs and he just takes the kids without question, gets them all crowded around the soda machine and sorts through his pockets for quarters.
Jesus Christ, even Chibbie's doing bitch work for Jo Jo...
'Did she wake up yet?' Juice keeps a weather eye on Mika, since he's the one most likely to follow what's going on. The kid's not paying attention though, he's too busy opening a can for his sisters, supervising to make sure they understand that they have to share the soda. Juice remembers Marnie doing the same with him and Jo Jo.
'She's in and out.' Marnie works her way out of her hoodie, ties it around her waist instead. 'They're talking about psych evaluations when she's out of ICU... Did Child Services get there yet?'
'Yeah. We got it handled.' Jo Jo stands in her usual fighting stance, hands in pockets.
'They're gonna come back, though.' Juice can't let Marnie think they don't need to worry about that anymore, not when the thing with child services is, they never really go away. One false move and it could all still fall apart. Jo Jo kicks out at Juice's ankle, gets him just above where his boot finishes. Hard. 'What?'
Marnie sighs, hands on hips, like their mom used to do. 'Look, guys, just handle it, okay? I don't want Luisita losing her kids like this. It'll kill her.'
Oh, yeah, Juice thinks, 'cause it's all about Luisa, just for a change. She has five kids, all by different people, then decides to off herself with her kids in the house. Like she's mom of the fucking year...
'Chica, why don't you go say 'hi' to her? Third bed on the left as you go in.' Marnie gestures to the door to the ICU. 'Don't forget the hand gel.' Jo gives the dispenser a wary look, wipes her hands down her pants instead and lets the door swing shut behind her.
Now their sister is out of the way, Marnie turns her attention to Juice. She holds out her arms and folds him up in them. 'You sure it's safe for you to be here, Mijo?'
'Yeah, Marn... I mean, it's been years an'...' Juice shrugs and Marnie holds him at arm's length. 'I'll just keep my head down, and...' Marnie nods, doesn't lose the worried expression, though. She just tugs the hood of his sweater forward from where it's slipped back from his head.
She smells like her deodorant might have given up a few hours ago. There's also the usual, faintly medicinal smell that always lingersin her hair. Her face is pale and there are dark circles under her eyes. She cups Juice's face in her palms and looks at him long and hard. 'How bad's the house?'
Trust Marnie. She knows Juice can't lie for shit. 'It's okay, I can handle it... So long as Jo Jo and Chibs keep the kids out of the way, I can get it all fixed.'
Juice watches Marnie as she turns to watch Chibs. The guy slumps into one of the plastic chairs, carry cot beside him and Antonio on his lap. Rosie tries to crawl onto his other knee and her face crumples in rage when he tells her 'no'. Chibs catches the little girl's hand, says something in her ear, his face, all solemn, and she shuts right up, contents herself with standing beside him, her head on his shoulder. Mika is talking to him like they're two guys chatting in a bar, mano a mano and Marta seems happy enough licking the dregs of her soda from off her fingers, feet swinging as she sits in her chair.
Juice wonders what it is Marnie's seeing, tries to see the guy as she might. Tall, skinny, with hair the colour of gun metal, and heavy pouches under his eyes. Scar on each cheek and brief teasers of tattoos half hidden by his clothing. Neither one of them brought their cuts with them but even without his, Chibs looks badass.
'You trust him?' Marnie's eyes flicker from the little tableau to Juice and her stare is almost as impenetrable as one of Jo Jo's.
'With my life,' Juice says.
&&&
Chibs has never been so glad to see a molded plastic chair in his entire life. He keeps half an eye on his five new best friends and the other half on Juice's sister. She's watching him right back. He sees her send Juice in to see his sister next, and then she walks over to where Chibs is sweating under the pile of kids.
He gives her a quick once over. Almond shaped eyes, framed with long dark lashes. High cheekbones and full lips. Even with minimal sleep, and worry etched in around her eyes, Marnie's stunning. It's a good job Tig isn't with them, 'cause he'd be in trouble.
Her hair is dark like the others', but unlike Jo Jo's it's not silky, looks like it might want to be curly but it's been beaten into chemical submission. He remembers Fi doing the same with hers when they first started seeing each other. All that shite went right out the window the minute Kerrianne came along.
Chibs remembers that Marnie is the one who shares a father with Juicy and that said father is African American, not Puerto Rican like their ma. Chibs knows for a fact that if Juice ever let his hair grow any longer than a grade one, it'd settle into tight curls.
She looks coolly down her nose as she gives Chibs a once-over of her own. Girl knows she's hot, doesn't mind using it to her advantage. Jo Jo doesn't do that, she uses her physicality to intimidate you, and Juicy, well, Juicy could easily use his appearance to his advantage, but the lad's got no idea what he fucking looks like.
Marnie opens her arms and the three kids who can shift under their own steam, immediately throw themselves against her.
&&&
Juice steps through the doors and finds the ward beyond about as quiet as an ICU ever gets, random beeps and the shushing sound of breathing equipment. Luisa's bed is the third from the door, just like Marnie had said it would be. She's tiny and alien looking against the white sheets, eyes shut tight and a tube under her nose. There's a drip in her arm and connected up to a rapid infuser, and her hospital gown sits awkwardly on her prone figure, like it's made of sheet metal and someone tried to mold it around her.
Jo Jo's sitting, flicking through Luisa's medical chart the way normal people look through a newspaper. 'Get a chair from one a the other beds.' She barely looks up.
'Did she wake up at all?' Juice can't help himself, he has to touch Luisa's hand. It's cool and dry, like she's already gone. There's a little blood seeping through the bandages and a smear of the stuff up her arm and across the gown.
'Nah.' Jo Jo goes right on reading and Juice fetches a chair.
He hates hospitals at the best of times, especially intensive care units. Last time he was visiting one must have been for Clay, and he'd spent hour after hour watching the rise and fall of the man's chest, listening to the sound of wet breath rasping in Clay’s battered lungs.
He'd felt the possibility of losing Clay like a mallet to his guts, looked at the man who was the closest thing he was ever gonna have to a father, and tried to imagine the world without him. He'd spent the time sitting with Clay, lost in memories of his early days with the club.
This, though, this is different. Right now, he feels anger more than anything, fury and disgust. And that's stupid, because, more than anyone, Juice should be able to understand what might make Luisa try to kill herself. He tries not to think too much about what happened those few months back, with the brick and Miles and the clusterfuck that was his relationship with Chibbie when he got out of Stockton, but right now, he can look back and know that he was lucky he hadn't succeeded, because he ended up with a second chance.
The thing is, back then Juice thought he had a pretty good reason for wanting to end things. He knows different now. Luisa, though, what the fuck could she have to feel bad about? And what kind of mother tries to off herself with her kids in the house?
'Jo?' His sister goes on flicking through the chart entries like she's not listening but Juice knows better. He gives her foot a little shove with his own and receives a half-hearted kick in return. 'You think she, um, you think she meant to-'
Jo lifts her eyes to meet his, blinks once. 'Seen her arms? I don't think she cut herself shaving.'
'Shut up, that's not what I meant! Sometimes people do stuff like this as a cry for help, or-'
Jo just shakes her head, like everything he says is stupid, goes back to the file. 'Retard,' she murmurs.
'Fuck you. You're not even reading that. It's all written in doctor writing, no one could read that.' Juice slumps back in his chair with his arms folded.
Jo smirks, clears her throat and starts reading out loud from the file, just to prove she can.
&&&
Juice takes the wheel to get him and Chibs back to Luisa's, on the grounds that Chibs got lost getting them there before, and the journey from the hospital's way more complicated. The moment the car starts to move, Chibs' head starts to nod.
Juice doesn't blame the guy for falling asleep, they've both been up since last night. He hopes they sell Red Bull in the store near Luisa's place. He'll never get through the next few days without it.
That night, Marnie declares she's staying over and that Juice and his buddy should go stay in a motel or something. She has them all sit down to dinner together first, though, and even though it's take out, she insists they sit at the table with plates and cutlery and all that 'please pass the salt' shit.
'Mika, ask, don't reach.' She says without even turning her head and the kid freezes, lets go of the rice and tucks his hands in his lap. 'Rosita, I know you're tired but you're not sitting under there. If you want food, come sit up at the table.' The little girl gets up without complaint, parks herself in the seat next to Chibs, dislodging her sister. 'Carlito, would you please say grace?'
Juice hears a stifled snort and looks up to see Jo Jo smirking at him behind her glass. Chibs is looking away, trying to school his own expression. Looks like Marnie's still on that god shit...
&&&
They get into the motel room and Juice pitches himself headfirst onto the bed, feet dangling off the side.
'Hey, idiot. Big sis ain't here now. Gonna have to put yourself to bed.'
'Don't care. Sleeping like this.' Juice really doesn't care. He's tired. He's so tired he's seeing double and has no idea how he drove them both to the motel without crashing their stupid rental.
He hears Chibs chuckle, and then the man is sitting himself on the edge of the bed, unlacing Juice's boots and letting them thud to the floor. The bed shifts again as Chibs lies back beside him and Juice thinks about moving closer, realises he can't be bothered. He lifts one leaden arm and drops it over the guy's belly instead.
'Pretty sure yer sister's figured out you're a friend o' Dorothy,' Chibs says after a while.
'Huh?' Juice raises his head just long enough to hit the guy with his patented Ortiz Death Glare. He lets his face fall back to the mattress when Chibs just smirks and lights up a smoke.
'Marnie,' Chibs says, like Juice is a retard. 'She knows you like dick. You can go back to waving your hand around when you're talking.' Guy holds out one hand, limp-wristed, puts the other one on his hip.
'Shut up. You look like a fucking teapot.' Juice turns his face so he doesn't have to look at the idiot. Chibs lying there like would normally be pretty funny, but Juice is tired, and the guy's full of shit, and Juice really doesn't want to have any sort of conversation right now.
He has no idea what makes Chibs think Marnie knows about the two of them, it's not like they walk around hand in hand and blowing each other kisses. Maybe he's figured it out the same way he figures out all the other stuff that Juice just doesn't get. Like knowing when Tig's on the rag, or Jax needs a hug.
'Suit yourself,' Chibs says, exhales slowly and then when Juice still doesn't turn back, the guy shifts himself over. 'Hey, come here.'
There's a brief press as Chibs kisses the side of Juice's face and then Juice can just relax into the feel of the other man around him. Juice lifts his head just long enough to tell Chibs that with all those fucking scarves the guy wears, he sets off way more gay-dar than Juice does.
'Yeah, dream on,' Chibs says, tightening his arms around him.
&&&
Later that night, Juice is lying on his side with the covers tugged up around his neck when Chibs finally joins him in the bed. Guy curls up around him, presses a kiss to the back of his head, hands sliding up under his t-shirt and settling around his middle.
Juice wants to be able to just snuggle and be snuggled back, for the day to have been left behind along with their shedded clothes. He can't shake off all the shit from earlier though, still wishes they'd sacked the whole thing off and gone to the park instead. Feels like the whole day's just sitting on his chest, smothering him. Chibs has been solid and silent, not getting in his face, demanding answers. Juice knows he owes the guy some sort of an explanation.
'Luisa's always been crazy.' Juice rolls onto his back, lets Chibs cuddle him closer. By the light streaming in from the bulb outside in the walkway, Juice can just make out the guy's silhouette: head, ear, shoulder. He's naked and his body is hot against Juice's, comfortable as a teddy bear. 'This suicide thing, it'll have been something dumb, like, she'll be jealous that her kids are getting more attention from their grandpa and she likes having the attention herself...'
Beside him, Chibs snorts. 'Juicy, what are you getting at?'
But, that's the stupid thing, Luisa and dad were always tight. Guy clashed with Marnie, and he fucking hated the sight of Juice. Jo Jo always seemed to have some sort of brick wall built up between herself and the rest of the world, but Luisa was all about her daddy, and he was all about her. She's never really gotten over growing up, having to be an adult. That's why Juice pays her bills and Marnie goes round there every week, and why Jo Jo hates dealing with her.
Dad forced them all to grow up fast, except for Lulu, his baby. He wanted to keep her a little girl forever. But the guy's a freak and now Luisa's a grown up, the little girls are more interesting, and she's lost out to them.
'Maybe it'd be better if the kids were in the system.' The moment it's out of his mouth, Juice wishes he could take it back. Chibs' hand tightens on Juice's arm and Juice is glad he's said it here and not to one of his sisters.
'Hey.' Chibs shifts, pins him, and his hands pinch on Juice's wrists. 'That's enough of that, yer hear? Those kids need their family round 'em. Don't want the social raising 'em...' Chibs hands loosen on Juice's wrists and he sighs, moves so that he's not crushing Juice anymore. 'Listen to me, Juicy. Yer sister's got troubles. Like it or not, you gotta help her. That's the best way to protect those kiddies.'
'Yeah. Yeah, I know...' And Juice does know. He remembers all too well what it had been like getting kicked out at fifteen and not knowing where he was gonna end up. He'd been lucky, Marnie had taken him. It hadn't been great, her boyfriend at the time had been a jerk, in spite of the motorbike he rode. But Juice has heard stories about kids who end up in care, and when he thinks about his two nieces, three nephews, he knows that's not what he wants for any of them.
Maybe the babies would luck out and end up with a nice family, but the other three would be stuck with revolving door foster carers. Poor Mika has precious little time to be a kid as it is and he'd be lost without his little sisters to look out for.
End part 2